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Sony 24-70 F4 Lens

lambert

New member
There is a lot of funny talking about the 24-70. Most of it done by dubious amateur bloggers, with doubtful results. Let's look what the Diglloyd says. At least a source which is trustable. I guess we can agree in that. You'll bet he will find some flaws with the lens too, but for now he writes:

Quote:
"Conclusions
Result here are very pretty, very pleasing. The 24-70/4 Vario-Tessar offers high sharpness and excellent contrast, both overall and micro contrast, and right to the corners. It performs at a high level that is not disappointing relative to the best Canon 24-70mm L zooms."
Did Lloyd test it on the A7 or A7R?
 

jonoslack

Active member
I think I'm more interested in what Tim Ashley has to say - at least it'll be honest, and he certainly has no agenda.
 

fotografz

Well-known member
There is a lot of funny talking about the 24-70. Most of it done by dubious amateur bloggers, with doubtful results. Let's look what the Diglloyd says. At least a source which is trustable. I guess we can agree in that. You'll bet he will find some flaws with the lens too, but for now he writes:

Quote:
"Conclusions
Result here are very pretty, very pleasing. The 24-70/4 Vario-Tessar offers high sharpness and excellent contrast, both overall and micro contrast, and right to the corners. It performs at a high level that is not disappointing relative to the best Canon 24-70mm L zooms."
Frankly, if it is in the "best from Canon" territory, that'll work for me … it'll be used the same way I use the ZA24-70 on the bigger cameras. I'll use the ZA24/2 for other stuff.

BTW, my ZA24/2 took me two copies to get a good one … no notable CA, (unlike the ZA85/1.4), and decent in the corners with distortion/vignetting well handled when LR lens profile corrections are applied.

- Marc
 

jonoslack

Active member
There is a lot of funny talking about the 24-70. Most of it done by dubious amateur bloggers, with doubtful results. Let's look what the Diglloyd says. At least a source which is trustable. I guess we can agree in that. You'll bet he will find some flaws with the lens too, but for now he writes:

As for 'dubious amateur bloggers' it seems to me that soft corners are soft corners, I guess you could fake them, but that really doesn't seem very likely.

Seems to me that if some people are reporting soft corners at 24mm to f11, then that's pretty easy to see - if Digilloyd's sample is so great, that points to sample variation to me.
 

tashley

Subscriber Member
I think I'm more interested in what Tim Ashley has to say - at least it'll be honest, and he certainly has no agenda.
Thanks Jono - my early copy option failed me but I should have one tomorrow I hope. And I will indeed by honest, though I think Lloyd is. However, I think one needs to start a test like this with planar subjects at close-ish and far-ish distances and then drill down from there to see what, if any, of the weak corners/edges are due to field curvature and or focus shift. That's the only way I personally learn how to get the best from a lens for any particular subject - though I do totally 'get' that others might want to see things differently!
 

lambert

New member
As for 'dubious amateur bloggers' it seems to me that soft corners are soft corners, I guess you could fake them, but that really doesn't seem very likely.

Seems to me that if some people are reporting soft corners at 24mm to f11, then that's pretty easy to see - if Digilloyd's sample is so great, that points to sample variation to me.
It seems Lloyd Chambers was specifically referring to performance at one focal length, mid zoom. He was not referring to performance across the board, particularly at the extremes of the zoom range.
 

Viramati

Member
Well as most zooms seem to get used at either end of the range it sounds like this lens is not really going to hit the mark. After all we have the superb 55 and good 35 for the middle slots. On top of that it is only F4!! anyway I hope they release a 28 or 24mm lens in the near future as zooms aren't my cup of tea anyway
 

vjbelle

Well-known member
Thanks Jono - my early copy option failed me but I should have one tomorrow I hope. And I will indeed by honest, though I think Lloyd is. However, I think one needs to start a test like this with planar subjects at close-ish and far-ish distances and then drill down from there to see what, if any, of the weak corners/edges are due to field curvature and or focus shift. That's the only way I personally learn how to get the best from a lens for any particular subject - though I do totally 'get' that others might want to see things differently!
Yes, Tim...... Planar images will show the weak points quickly in any lens. For the life of me I don't know why Lloyd has abandoned anything planar and instead going for 3D stuff that doesn't/can't show curvature or an out of whack side or corner. I'm loosing confidence in Mr. Chambers..... and in the 24-70.

Victor
 

tashley

Subscriber Member
Hi Victor,

I agree - those 3D scenes are 'real world' for sure, but they don't tell me much. Lloyd is IMHO generally the best and most thorough reviewer, but the scenes he chooses don't always work for me. My main work is landscape and some travel, a bit of architecture and less portraiture and for that I want sharp edges on distant scenes and, on the facades of buildings, sharp edges and corners. Field curvature can, as we all know, work for or against the 'shape' of a scene but it really is important to start with planar and work from there in order to work out what a lens is up to...
 

hcubell

Well-known member
It seems Lloyd Chambers was specifically referring to performance at one focal length, mid zoom. He was not referring to performance across the board, particularly at the extremes of the zoom range.
Not so. He thought it was excellent at 70mm. 24mm in the corners is where it was weak. I don't know the first thing about MTF charts, but my understanding is that the mediocre corner performance at 24mm is to be expected from the charts for the FE 24-70. If 28mm is a big improvement over 24mm, I could live happily with that. 28-70mm is a very useful range.
 

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
Yeah, he's making too much of that IMHO, I have seen it but it is rare.
You ain't freaking kidding on that. I'm containing the rest of my comments on it as its not very good. Lets just say over 3k and seen it once maybe twice.
 

jonoslack

Active member
Yeah, he's making too much of that IMHO, I have seen it but it is rare.
You ain't freaking kidding on that. I'm containing the rest of my comments on it as its not very good. Lets just say over 3k and seen it once maybe twice.
Oh! That's why I escaped from the A7r hand held 'camera shake' at sensible exposures . . . .but perhaps I was premature. I'm used to 1/2 focal length with the M240, and I was feeling that 2X focal length was needed on the A7r . . .
 

Ocean

Senior Subscriber Member
Jono, I have been using just 1X focal length (handhold) on all my Leica R lenses. I haven't really see any issue due to the shutter vibration.
 

hcubell

Well-known member
Jono, I have been using just 1X focal length (handhold) on all my Leica R lenses. I haven't really see any issue due to the shutter vibration.
I am not surprised that you don't think shutter vibration is an issue for you if you are shooting handheld. However, I would think that shooting handheld is not the way to go about testing whether shutter vibration is or is not an issue.
 

philip_pj

New member
I lose the final bit of top quality of images much more often to even small misses of focus or subject movement than to any s/s variations, but aim for 1/2 x fl. If lower than 1/fl, I look for extra support - column or wall, wrap the neck strap tight and shoot at the top of a breath etc. And I have quite a few 1/40s frames I am happy with. On the a7r dof is harder to rely on to 'cover' slight focus misses, could be the FE 55 contributing too. The focal plane is thin..the 24-70 might do quite a bit better.

LC is still after Sony to please him with a fix so expect more of this from him. Don't forget the shutter shock Holmes and LC are pushing is unidirectional not generalized, and needed an adapter foot pod mount to show itself.
 

tashley

Subscriber Member
Nevertheless, original advice for the d800 handheld was 3x, and I found in practice that this was the only way to be sure. It doesn't matter, in a way, that I can also very often nail it at 1x because I know that I might not. So my way, when there is time, is to shoot my a7r at 3x at whatever ISO that requires, then, if that ISO is 'too high for comfort' bang off a few frames at lower ISO and lower multiple of shutter speed.. I will generally get at least one frame that works at the slower shutter speed, but have my insurance policy in place. However this clearly does not suit all subjects and situations...

If I were writing a petition to Sony it would be to allow AUTO ISO parameters to include a variable minimum shutter speed linked to focal length...
 

nugat

New member
With the growing sensor resolution the rule of thumb for the shutter vs f-length calls for ever faster shutters. 3x is not unreasonable for 36mpix sensors.

See attached MTF for the Vario-Tessar 24-70/4 FE Sony/Zeiss zoom.
Compare with MTFs for Zeiss Vario-Sonnar 24-70/f2.8.
Wide open (2.8 vs f4) the Sonnar is better at the wide end but loses slightly at 70mm. Most likely it wins on both ends at f4. It costs double.

How to read those:
A theoretical perfect lens would have all the lines flat and overlapping near the 100% contrast limit (topmost horizontal line). The perception of picture "sharpness" grows with contrast for a given figure of line pairs/mm.
If the lines (curves) of the same color (for the same value of line pairs/mm) start parting away that means astigmatism and loss of "sharpness". Contrast is lower/higher in the different directions of the image circle marked by continuous and dotted lines of the same color.
Curves dropping with the distance from the image center means worse contrast towards the corners.
 
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